}!{
Brand heard the crisp whir of the gatling-laser and saw the distinct red glow of the sentry bot's targeting module out of the corner of his eye. He immediately dove down behind the wall of sandbags and covered his head as the deadly stream of super-heated particles bombarded his position. The rest of his squad of fellow recruits were just a few feet away from following him in, they tried to shoot back but were suppressed by the robot's fire.
"Damn thing's got us pinned!" Brand heard one of them yell, "Pig-Iron! You okay?"
On most days when the company wasn't out jogging through the dusty roads of the capital, Sgt. Joker put his recruits through the harrowing live-fire exercises in Camp Forge's simulation fields. To build up an edge against the horrors of the Wasteland, the recruits were exposed early on to the potential dangers they would face in the line of duty. When it wasn't going up against raiders or monsters, sometimes it would be up against the relics of America's bygone era.
"I'm alright! Stay in cover, keep your heads down!"
Unlike the other recruits, Brand knew exactly what to do when facing a sentry bot. He had both the training from his time at Landfall as well as the experience that came with being a paladin. He had the pleasure of cutting down a dozen or so back in the day. However, none of the sentry bots he killed were in good condition to begin with. The robot he and the other recruits faced was a fully restored sentry bot. The technicians at the training center reduced the gatling-laser's coil frequency to minimum output, so as to lessen the potential fatalities in the exercise.
Although the machine's lasers could barely light a candlewick, its fire could still hurt like hell.
Peering down from the walls that enclosed the live-fire training facility, Sgt. Joker evaluated the squad based on their adaptability. Their mission was to work their way through a maze of obstacles, neutralize any threats and reach the exit. Several other squads have already gone before them and failed. So far, only Brand's squad was the one to get as far as the sentry bot.
The drill instructor scrutinized Brand's actions and noted that the recruit had some experience in the field. He didn't freeze up like the other recruits, and rather than stay in cover he actively worked to flank the robot to get at its weak spot. While the sentry bot was equipped with formidable armor plating, its protection was thinner in the back. After a quick review of the recruit's file on the sergeant's pip-boy, he thought it made sense given the waster's background. Roaming the Texas Wasteland, meeting a crazed killing machine every now and then was the new kind of normal.
Armed with a standard issue RKN-R 24 carbine, Brand waited until the sentry bot stopped firing to cool off its glowing barrel before emptying his clip point-blank into the back of the robot's head. The snub-nosed weapon rattled in his hands until the last casing jumped out of its ejection port. Although the machine remained more or less functional, Brand managed to destroy its targeting module and IFF matrix, which sent it into a frenzy.
The sentry bot swung its arm wildly and knocked Brand back into the dirt. It fired and continued to fire its weapon until its barrels glowed red from the heat. Eventually, the gatling-laser melted itself right off its arm and exploded into a bright cloud of sparks and shrapnel.
The paladin reached for a grenade on his belt, pulled the pin, then dumped it inside the exposed chassis. He went for cover and hollered for the whole squad to hear, "Grenade out!"
The explosion wasn't enough to blow the entire sentry bot to pieces, but it was enough to destroy its essential components. The heavy torso distended outwards like a blown out boiler-plate, and smoke rose out of its body as the core overloaded and started to leak.
"Get clear, that stuff's radioactive!" Sgt. Joker announced, "Move on to your objective! Clock's ticking!"
The squad of recruits obeyed their commanding officer and gave the smoking wreck a wide berth as they moved up the corridor towards the exit. When they got there, they found a large bell sitting in the middle of the room. Brand hit it with the butt of his carbine and rang the bell for the exit doors to open. The buzzer sounded for the end of the exercise and the recruits lined up outside the facility for dismissal.
"Congratulations, recruits!" The sergeant growled, "You just made company record, five seconds shorter than the fastest squad in the Forge. Well done."
The recruits were still at attention, but they couldn't help but smile proudly at what they've accomplished, especially Brand.
"Yeah, you must be real proud that you've messed up my course. Ain't that right, Pig-Iron?"
"Yes sir!" The paladin declared.
The gruff old veteran hinted at a smile, but kept his drill instructor face on. "Head to the clinic for a quick checkup. Can't have you boys shitting or puking your guts out halfway through training. Dismissed!"
The squad saluted the sergeant and marched off to the Camp Forge Clinic, the one place in the whole male section of the training facility where the recruits could find civilization's most precious resource-
Women. And the best part was that they were all nurses.
Naturally, the recruits were excited to get a chance to drop by the place. A pretty face, a warm smile or maybe a kiss, would make the thirteen weeks of hell worth going through. Very few of them, like Brand, showed little interest and only wished to be free from the rads they absorbed during the exercise.
Brand, for the sake of his mission, tried his best to make friends among the recruits. It wasn't hard to do, as the rest of the company recognized Brand's preexisting skills that contributed to his quick adaptation to the life of a soldier. They looked up to him. And while his superiors had their doubts, he exhibited all the right traits for leadership. Even his drill instructor had to admit that wasn't something that occurred on a regular basis.
"That was some hardcore shit you pulled off, Brand!"
The paladin grunted as someone's arm landed heavily across his shoulders. He suppressed his annoyance and turned to greet Rush, one of the few fellow recruits who didn't address him by the demeaning nickname Sgt. Joker tagged him with. "I thought you said you had my back. Where were you?"
"On your ass, keeping my head down just like you said!" Rush defended, "Figured if I got myself shot back there, Joker's gonna make us do the whole thing all over again."
Having been born a citizen of the Dominion, Rush Bayern stood out from the rest of the recruits, who were made up mostly of wasters looking to serve in exchange for their citizenship. His parents were Old Blood, just like old Sgt. Joker. Although born within the walls of Elysion, Rush knew a thing or two about the hard life in the Wasteland, as his parents were both pioneers. He grew up in settlements, raising crops and operating water purifier stations. Upon reaching the age of 18, Rush chose to serve his country the best way he thought he could and joined the Rooks.
Over the weeks of training, he took a liking to Brand, whom he saw as the wiser and more experienced recruit among all others. He stuck to him like a superglued piece of cardboard. Rush proved to be a competent enough fellow, so the paladin tolerated him. Over time, he grew on him and Brand eventually felt he could call him a friend, although having his own reservations regarding the lie he had to live as a spy.
He liked Rush, but there was no way he could let anything jeopardize his mission. Whatever the game was, he'd play with his cards close to his vest. As far as the other recruits knew, he was just the one guy in the team who had 'seen some shit'.
Brand shrugged his friend's arm off his shoulders, "Good. At least you can follow orders like a decent soldier. That'll keep you alive out there."
The recruits lined up outside the clinic and waited for their serial numbers to be called. One by one they approached the head nurse desk and let the ladies do the uncomfortable process of hooking them up to RadAway IV stations. Brand was familiar with the process, as the BoS possessed something similar. Portable injectable RadAway bags were commonplace among Brotherhood personnel, having been deemed an essential tool especially to combat the effects of radiation sickness.
The process didn't bother him much, and he took the time to admire the efficiency of the Dominion's medical facilities. He still hated what the Dominion stood for, but over the weeks he spent at Camp Forge learning about the country and its people, Brand eventually grew to begrudgingly respect its qualities.
The efficiency, the coordination, even the patriotic zeal that mirrored closely the one he had for the Brotherhood cause. The clean streets and clean air, a farcry from the barbaric conditions he had known all his life. If he was honest with himself, Brand was becoming comfortable with his life living in Dominion lands.
Rush and some of the other recruits tarried a bit to flirt with some of the nurses, creating quite the scene when their advances were subsequently rebuffed. When the whole thing was done, Brand and his fellows emerged from the clinic all healthy and clean to return to training. Later that afternoon, he and the rest of the company were back on the road for PT.
Sgt. Joker sang a raunchy cadence call to keep the recruits dressed and moving as one, while at the same time served to keep the march interesting. They did a few laps around Camp Forge, then stopped to return for the evening meal at the Mess Hall. It was during this time that Brand first saw the Dominion's newest service branch in action.
The Dominion Air Force paratroopers were making their first jump that day as part of their training exercise. While they operated mainly out of the White Bastion in Elysion, there were talks about the Air Force getting their own base and training center just a mile away from Camp Forge.
Through the dimming light of the hastily dipping sun, the descending paratroopers looked like floating seedlings blown out of a tato flower-bush. Jumping out of a vertibird super-carrier and borne on round parachutes, the soldiers went where the wind blew and landed east of the camp grounds, right over the road where Brand and the rooks marched on.
When their feet touched the ground, they bounced lightly and rolled over to shrug off the impact of the fall.
Although they were fairly new, this didn't save them from the feelings of animosity that the rooks on Camp Forge felt for them. Like any interservice rivalry, the soldiers of the Dominion jumped at the chance to butt heads.
"What, feet too soft for a good ol' march?" Someone in the crowd of rooks jeered.
"Looks like someone decided to take a shortcut!" Another one said.
Rush cupped his hands over his lips and yelled, "Hey flyboys, landing zone's that way!" His remark was received with a shared laugh from his fellows.
A female paratrooper returned their taunts with a mock salute as she got up from the jump. She landed a little too close to the Camp Forge entrance, just enough for Brand to get a good look at her face as she gathered up her chute from the ground.
"Good jump." The paladin said, genuinely impressed by the display.
The paratrooper threw him an unamused look and continued to fold, roll and stow the chute back into the pack. When she was finished, she hoisted her full gear back on to prepare for the long march back to base.
She was quite tall and broad-shouldered, which helped with the heavy load she was carrying with her. Strong piercing blue eyes peered out of the black camo smeared all over her face, and stray golden strands pushed stubbornly under her helmet. With her Reckoner carbine and some mags strapped across her armor, she looked every bit the warrior woman of the post-apocalyptic era.
After scrutinizing him for a bit to see if he was mocking her like the others, the paratrooper eased up and returned the compliment. "Good run, rook."
Brand's shirt was soaked in sweat from his pits, to his back and to his belly. He'd done his work for the day, just like her. That meant something at the very least.
The paladin watched as the paratroopers marched off back to Elysion until they disappeared down the road. Then, he turned his heel and entered Camp Forge to get some chow at the Mess Hall.
It didn't take much to get the Texan Chapter to work round the clock on building its strength. Fear was a hell of a motivator.
Fed by the information garnered by their spies in the Dominion, the Brotherhood of Steel focused on gaining an edge that could challenge the might of their enemies, to become proficient where they were lacking. Seeing that the Dominion's military strength was comprised mainly by infantry, supported heavily by armored battalions and by air, the Brotherhood perfected their designs on the Equalizer tank-destroyers as well as improve upon what they already had.
The Brotherhood's strength lay with their highly mobile assault teams, made up of veteran knights and scribes skilled in asymmetrical warfare. Experienced warriors clad in power-armored suits, bearing miniguns or rocket-launchers. Agile recon teams cloaked with pseudo-invisibility granting stealth-boys, armed with gauss and powerful anti-material rifles. Whether it be through brute force tactics or stealthy maneuvers, whatever the situation required, they always came through with their goals.
Vertibird lancer pilots capable of transporting troops in and out of a battlefield with ease, as well as deliver potent strafing runs to support their ground teams, were the backbone of the Brotherhood's fighting arm.
They may not have the sophisticated war machines of the Dominion, but the Brotherhood could always come up with a solution to keep on par.
With the arrival of the Dominion's Air Force, Elder Corvinus saw the need for a means to counter their attempts at air superiority. Constructing planes of their own was out of the question, as the Brotherhood never saw the value in them and thus never preserved nor replicated their designs when retrieved from the many vaults they opened over the years.
And so, the scribes turned to a design that they did find useful- Brotherhood airships.
Once, these aerial machines existed primarily as mega-transports, capable of carrying thousands of Brotherhood personnel and equipment across thousands of miles. Other variants were created to serve as vertibird carriers, or simply provide a mobile base of operations for outgoing chapters. None were created to serve in combat roles before.
But times were changing, and the Brotherhood with them.
They had the parts, they had the weapons, they had the time. And so, beginning with the Elder's command, the best of their people began constructing the first three infantry support airships in Brotherhood history.
But in order to complete their work, the Head Scribe early on entasked some of his most trusted retrieval and security teams to venture out into the Wasteland and dig up marked buried vaults to salvage the technologies and materials stored within them. The process of constructing the airships alone would take years, but the aid of the materials could cut that time in half.
Later that same day, the Brotherhood Elder received another piece of intel from Scribe Karter. This bit of news both disturbed and intrigued the triumvirate of leaders of the Texan Chapter.
Earlier in the month, Karter surveyed the whole of Carlon City. She documented over fifty photographs and seventy handwritten reports, encompassing the broad and varied aspects of Dominion's civilian infrastructure as well as their military.
She focused mostly on the Dominion's supply centers and logistics divisions. She marked sites that were particularly isolated, easy to seize and easy to hold, which could prove essential in the coming war. The fact that their spies so easily penetrated the defenses of the Dominion astonished the Elder.
When the Great War ended, the Dominion's focus on rebuilding civilization overrode the Old American paranoia of foreign espionage. In their hubris, it was unthinkable that following the nuclear apocalypse, someone would look to infiltrate their ranks and steal their secrets away. For as long as the Brotherhood could keep up the charade, they would exploit this hubris.
Karter also followed closely and documented the Dominion's unique justice and penal system, which inevitably led to her discovery of the brutal work of the street judges and the penal labor camps outside of Carlon City.
The men and women who were condemned to work in the camps were all former raiders, thieves and murderers. Enemies of the state were given a single chance to reeducate themselves through hard labor and contribute to the nation they once fought against. Those deemed too dangerous to absorb into Dominion society were simply executed, their remains offering contribution through a different form.
Regardless of the facts, the Brotherhood leaders were horrified at the concept. Forced labor walked a thin line between a sound correctional method and just outright slavery.
It was a common tool by communist and fascist regimes. And although, given the post-apocalyptic state of the New World, the method could be seen as a pragmatic approach to rebuild civilization, the Brotherhood painted the Dominion no longer as a misguided nation- but as a force of evil that needed to be stopped.
It was decided, after a long period of indecision, that war was inevitable.
And unlike their predecessors, the Texan Chapter would strike first.
}!{